Personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other

Friday, April 8, 2011

The Inability of the Radical Left to Deal with Reality

I"m dedicating this column to The Guardian, Andrew Sullivan, Mondoweiss, and Didi Remez and his handful of like-minded Israeli loonies. Ah, and also To Alberto, the Argentine lefty with no Arab blood but at least one Jewish grandparent who likes to call himself Ibrahim and sometimes visits this blog.

The murder of a peace hero by Palestinians has no place on the left's emotional and ideological map. The murder of a freedom hero by Palestinians is a dogma-undermining, paradigm-subverting event for the left. Mer-Khamis' murder by Palestinians is a murder doomed for repression.
This is a deep, broad issue that goes beyond just the Israeli left. One of the outstanding characteristics of Western enlightenment in the 21st century is its inability to denounce forces of evil in the Arab-Muslim world. Western enlightenment likes to criticize the West. It especially likes to criticize the West's allies in the East. But when it runs into evil originating in the East, it falls silent.

I think that the left always claim to be the true guardians (ooops!) of the Enlightenment, as a propaganda device, as a kind of curriculum vitae or credentials. I think many people sincerely believe that, and Marx, as a major propagandist, was very smart in his slogan of "scientific socialism".

But the fact of the matter is that for a long time now, it became clear that this is pure propaganda, as the left abandoned in a consistent and recurrent fashion, all the basic tenets of the Enlightenment, begining with Marx himself. They mainly abandoned the ideal of respect for truth and inverted the scientific method: instead of cheking a proposed theory to explain some facts, they systematically distort facts to fir a pre-established theory, which is ideology at it purest state.

They also betrayed the ideals of individual freedom and human rightsto which they merely paid lip service, justifying all kinds of atrocity with a messianic future paradise.

It transformed itself into a secular religion, a ruthless ideology dressed in a pseudo-rational garb. In this sense, it is even worse that the "reaction", which at least was straightforward in its rejection of the Enlightenment and embrace of obscurantism.

In sum, the left has no right (oops!) in claiming to be heir of the Enlightenment tradition.

Palestinians have been complaining for a long time that foreign activists "corrupt" their youth. Women activists have even been asked in the past to wear modest attire when they come to the West Bank (in Gaza, they have simply banned Israelis even the likes of Amira Hess).

The theater has been previously torched twice and Juliano Mer Khamis has been threatened before.

Furthermore, the baby-sitter of Mer's children who was sitting in the car is said to have recognized the shooter, who has been detained.

In addition, Zakaria Zbaybi a well-known "reformed" terrorist who is also the theater's co-director is not denying that it was a palestinian from the camp. He is only trying to make it look politically motivated - "people here are against the one-state solution".

"The Guardian, Andrew Sullivan, Mondoweiss, and Didi Remez and his handful of like-minded Israeli loonies. Ah, and also To Alberto"

I don't think they should all be thrown in the same basket.Given the distilled hatred dripping from his comments, I wouldn't put it past a Philip Weiss to knowingly help a suicide bomber pass through the checkpoint to reach his/her target location. This is my opinion, and in that perspective he should be thrown off that list.

That would be the litmus test. I don't think the others are so morally bankrupt so as to do that -although there is no doubt they could be used.

Didi Remez is the Hometz Ben Yayin of the Talmud - nothing more, nothing less.As to the others, they are the usual that Jews have had to contend with over the centuries.

I enjoyed the article, but I notice that he's only condemning the Left's hypocrisy when it comes to Arab-on-Arab violence - he's absolutely silent on anti-"Western" violence by non-Westerners. Given the recent acts of savagery against Israeli civilians, you think he might have said something... Oh well, I guess that's asking too much for someone writing in Ha'aretz.

This is a good example of an article that says a lot without saying anything.

Here are some standout lines:

"This is a deep, broad issue that goes beyond just the Israeli left."

Of course, no groups or individuals are named, so the reader is free to superimpose their favorite punching bag on the descriptions of behavior without considering if it matches up.

"But when it runs into evil originating in the East, it falls silent."

Then collaborating with a brutal invader that targets civilians (Yes, I'm talking about the United States) isn't evil originating in the East? Guess Mubarak and Maliki were born in Omaha.

"It is easy to come out against pro-Western Hosni Mubarak, but hard to come out against the Muslim Brotherhood."

So hold on, the Brotherhood was killing and raping people in jail like Mubarak was?

"The result is a long line of distortions. The blood of the Marmara flotilla fatalities is thicker than the blood of those who were murdered and hung in Iran."

Point taken. It's not like Israel can get F18s and Blackhawks from the US, which exports lumber to Iran. You can see the hypocrisy in condemning Israel without including Iran.

By the way, is he saying the Mavi Marmara attack and hangings in Iran are acts of evil equally or is it more like we're supposed to focus on the hangings and ignore the attack? That much he leaves ambiguous, though he may concede the attack was indeed evil with this line, "It discriminates between different kinds of evil, different kinds of blood and different kinds of victims."

Now, if he doesn't think the Mavi Marmara attack was evil, the pretense of criticism rings hollow.

"Thus it loses the ability to see historic reality as a whole, in all its complexity. It also makes it act unfairly and unjustly."

Who is the left? What does it do? How does it act unfairly and unjustly? No answer. It's just empty rhetoric pandering to the target audience of the article, those who would rather pretend the invasions and bombing of civilian targets by western countries are not evil (because American bombs are from a free society).

and free societies are not free to defend themselves, especially not, if they should happen to possess superior weapon systems. How dare they ...

free societies should spend morning, noon and night caving in to ever more nitpicking demands on their confessing guilt, major guilt, never before heard of guilt, guilt by implication, fantasized guilt, might have happened guilt and most of all being the only ones infected by racism, especially of that subsconscious kind.

cutman, are you suggesting those killed by the Iranian government were on a mission to deliver expired medicine to the enemies of Iran when they were killed? Where they in the process of beating with iron bars, stabbing and in at least one case shooting Iranian soldiers when killed? Or are you amongst the crowd that refuses to believe video evidence and claims that the people killed where just trying to hug and kiss the Israeli soldiers?

And no the MB never ever killed anyone they disagreed with - Sadat died of a lead overdose and they were simply making a point that mahfouz looked better with a stab wound - and never ever targeted women. That american reporter was just a victim overenthusiastic cuddles.

When did the US deliberately target civilians? The world is shades of grey doesn't mean there are not people who on the extreme evil side - the Taliban and Saddam both fall into those categories and Mubarak doesn't. When your sole basis for outrage is whether the person at the time is anti-American, I guess it makes for bizarre arguments.

"Where they in the process of beating with iron bars, stabbing and in at least one case shooting Iranian soldiers when killed?"

This line of argumentation can only mean we've established that Shavit meant we're supposed to consider only the hangings evil and pretend the flotilla attack was justified. Why even ask? It was instinctively known by all who read it.

"And no the MB never ever killed anyone they disagreed with"

I'll oppose the Brotherhood when a number of Egyptians who make sense give me a reason to. At the same time, I'm not going to support them. Shades of grey and all that.

And you are alleging they assaulted Lara Logan directly. Didn't incite it. Did it. Link needed.

"When did the US deliberately target civilians?"

Start with the Indian wars and go from there.

"When your sole basis for outrage is whether the person at the time is anti-American, I guess it makes for bizarre arguments."

Listen and you'll hear: I don't like dictatorships even if they pretend to be anti-American. I just don't buy that the US warlords care about the people at large anymore than the dictator.

...Of late, [Mer-Khamis] had explicitly supported "armed resistance" to the Israeli occupation, "by any means," and called for a "one-state [solution] between the [Jordan] River and the [Mediterranean] Sea"...

At this moment Israel is in war. It is a special kind of war in which it is legal and fair to shoot only and especially at Israeli civilians and in which Israel has spent millions on civil defence thus proteting its people. While the other side claiming povery and helplessnes, is shooting the most modern weapons spending zero on civil defence, hiding missile bases among civilians and that is seen as if Israel is the cruel, inhuman victimizer.

Also in this case Israelbashers try to obfuscate the issue and claim, violence is rampant in the region. They suggest, that such things happen also in Israel. If I remember correctly since 1948 and until today in Israel two men were killed, because they advocated peace, Emil Grünzweig and Yitzhak Rabin.However in the Arab countries violence is daily employed as means to solve a political or ideological conflict.

Here he laments the fact that although Jewish progressives like J-Street and others "understandably" give unreserved support for the Palestinians who attack us here in Israel, he wishes they would shed a tear for his friends and relatives who are hiding in shelters in the region around the Gaza Strip.How out of touch can he be? Jewish Progressives (J-Street, Richard Silverstein, Phil Weiss R. Brant Rosen) are are Prof. Sternberg's "Purificationists"...that means WE are guilty and these Purificationists can NOT have any sympathy for Burston's friends and relatives because THEY are guilty. These "progressives"have come to totally identify with the Palesinians and they will overlook any crime they commit. What I don't understand is why he can't seem to fathom this.

Anonymous-Rabin was not killed because he advocated peace. I suggest you read the official Shamgar Commission report on the assassination. The man closest to accused assassin Yigal Amir was a SHABAK provocateur named Avishai Raviv. For reasons that I can only guess, even though Yigal Amir was an extremist known to the SHABAK, he was knowingly allowed into the sterile zone in front of Rabin's car by the police (who had checked his identity papers shortly before the shooting) and the SHABAK bodyguards (who were careful not to cover Rabin's back which gave Amir clear access) so I can only come to the conclusion that high-placed people wanted him to be there. We can only speculate as to why.

Y. Ben-David, not necessarily a buyer of the conspiracy theory. Frankly, at the time it was inconceivable that a Jewish Israeli would kill a PM and I'd buy incompetence or a lack of imagination over malice in 90% of cases.

As for the bit about Rabin being killed for peace, I would maintain that had Rabin survived Oslo would have ended sooner. His murder gave it an extra impetus that had he simply been voted out earlier would not have been there.

Some years after the Rabin assassination, it was revealed by Yediot Aharonot that the SHABAK had carried out, before the Rabin murder, a simulation of the assassination of a Prime Minister IN Kikar Rabin which succeeded as the umpires determined which very closely matched the actual events regarding Rabin, so we see it was not "inconceivable" as far as the SHABAK was concerned, they obviously had been thinking about it. Also, assassinations of public figures were not unheard of....famous Leftist writer Amos Keinan attempted to assassinate a Right-wing/religious government minister in the 1950's that he didn't like, but he got away with it, probably because he belonged to the "correct" political camp.....

Some years after the Rabin assassination, it was revealed by Yediot Aharonot that the SHABAK had carried out, before the Rabin murder, a simulation of the assassination of a Prime Minister IN Kikar Rabin which succeeded as the umpires determined which very closely matched the actual events regarding Rabin, so we see it was not "inconceivable" as far as the SHABAK was concerned, they obviously had been thinking about it. Also, assassinations of public figures were not unheard of....famous Leftist writer Amos Keinan attempted to assassinate a Right-wing/religious government minister in the 1950's that he didn't like, but he got away with it, probably because he belonged to the "correct" political camp.....

"However in the Arab countries violence is daily employed as means to solve a political or ideological conflict."

I find this whole comparison very silly because of course the Zionist movement isn't going to directly kill Jews -- Not habitually anyway. The point is to use them as demographic chess pieces and risk their neck to one extent or another.

Violence to achieve an exclusive, utopian ideal is still the stock-in-trade. Just because it's not directed at the people the movement claims to speak for doesn't make it civilized and cuddly.

and while you are at it, why not ask Ibrahim for tales from his Jewish grandfather?

explanation:andrew r is an admirer of said Ibrahim who badly cheated Yaacov and thus best be left alone - he shows up only because he hopes to draw blood because things are boring over at his beloved site and rightfully so.

"It's verrry tedious just having to say it but here it goes: The US is only not killing its own people now because it did enough of that 150 years ago to mitigate the necessity."Andyot

No, what´s tedious is this pathetic leftist nonsense. Listen, dear arm-chair humanist, every culture killed a lot of people in the past. Europeans killed themselves in droves and then decided to kill millions of non-europeans too, around 150 ago.

The japanese were as bad as the nazis. So were the turks, not to mention muslims themselves, that have been killing each other and the infidels non-stop for 1400 years.

Same with the africans, some of which enslaved and sold other africans to europeans.

So, there. Everyone is guilty, except you, the great pacifist and feel-good moralist. Are you happy now? Great, now you can go back to watching your favorite TV sitcom or discuss more BS with your fac-simile al-Berto.